LOS ANGELES—Maria Arena Bell and Pierre Norman Rolin are the latest additions to the board of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the L.A. Times reports. Bell, a head writer for The Young and the Restless, is an active arts advocate. She has led the museum's acquisition and collection committee since 2004, and she chaired the museum's gala for its Takashi Murakami exhibition in 2007. Rolin is the founder, chairman, and chief executive of Strategic Real Estate Advisors, as well as the founder of the StratREAL Foundation, which works to help youth around the world through education, healthcare, housing, and the arts. He is also an art collector and a strong supporter of MOCA.

ATHENS—The Athens Biennial has announced the curators for its second edition, which runs June 15 – Oct. 4, 2009. The art and performances in public spaces will be curated by Dimitris Papaioannou, former creative director of the opening ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, and Zafos Xagoraris. Exhibitions, installations, public interventions, screening programs, and symposia will be curated by Nadja Argyropoulou, Diana Baldon, Christopher Marinos, Chus Martínez, and Cay Sophie Rabinowitz, the former artistic director of Art Basel and Art Basel Miami Beach. The overall exhibition will be designed by architect and artist Andreas Angelidakis.

Farewells
LOS ANGELES—William Claxton, celebrated music photographer and founding member of the Recording Academy, died on October 11 at the age of 80 due to complications from congestive heart failure, reports the Associated Press. Beginning his career in 1952 at the University of California, Los Angeles, Claxton went on to become renowned for his diverse portraits of musical artists from Chet Baker to Bob Dylan. His photos graced everything from album covers to spreads in magazines such as Life, Paris Match, and Vogue. As husband to model Peggy Moffitt, he also dabbled in fashion photography in the 1960s, creating a collection of iconic images that feature Rudi Gernreich’s designs and directing a  fashion film, Basic Black, currently housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Claxton was acknowledged for his variety of achievements with the Lucie Award for music photography at the International Photography Awards in 2003. PARIS—Senegalese artist Iba Ndiaye, 80, a highly influential painter of 20th century African modernism, died on October 5 in Paris, reports the New York Times. The cause was heart failure after a long illness. Ndiaye was born in Senegal, leaving in 1949 for a ten-year stint in Montpellier and Paris to study architecture, moving back in 1959, and a making a final move to Paris in 1967. After Senegal’s declaration of independence in the 1960s, he created a department of plastic arts at the National School of Fine Arts in Dakur and taught there until 1966. At the same time, he and a number of other artists founded a Senegalese art movement called École de Darkar. He was known for straying away from the movement's primitivist, non-colonialist bent with semi-abstract canvases that referenced the School of Paris style. He was featured in several international exhibitions, including “The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994” and “Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art.”